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GSSEF Introduces Power Up: Bullying Prevention Program
Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida is introducing Power Up, a program to address the issues of bullying. Every girl(and woman) has experienced bullying either as the bully, the target or bystander to gossip,rumors, and cruel behavior. This behavior runs the gamut from rolling one’s eyes, to excluding someone from the play circle or lunch table to character assassination and now cyberbullying.
Power Up is a unique curriculum aimed at creating an environment where girls and adults are in partnership to eliminate bullying behavior. Power Up was created by Girl Scouts of Colorado and is research-based. This program has been piloted extensively, and thoroughly evaluated throughout the state of Colorado. Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida now has its very own Power Up specialist on staff. This nationally recognized Bullying Prevention Journey focuses on encouraging the 85% of girls who are bystanders to bullying behavior—especially the gossip, exclusion and drama common among girls—to stand up and defend the target and make their world a better place!
The stereotypical vision of bullying is the kind of physical bullying more common among boys. Far more common among both boys and girls is verbal bullying, name-calling, and other forms of verbal harassment. Most people and programs virtually ignore relational bullying, the systematic diminishment of a child’s sense of self-worth through exclusion, shunning and gossip. Relational bullying is all too common among girls of all ages, but girls can be taught to prevent it and to intervene when they see any bullying happen in their schools.
Power Up is a six-hour program and uses experiential learning activities, role playing, and “straight-from-your-school” examples from the girls themselves to teach how to recognize bullying and effectively intervene when they see it. Our curriculum also has a service-learning component, in which the students identify places in their school that are safe and places where bullying is likely to happen. They then identify people of influence in your school and invite them to learn about what’s going on in your building from the students’ perspective and their input on solutions.
Facts:
Florida Statistics
- According to a 2007 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey – 27 percent of students in Florida reported being bullied and 23 percent report the bullying of others.
National statistics:
- Every 7 minutes a child is bullied.
- 85% of bullying episodes happen in front of bystanders. The level of aggression and abuse rises with each additional audience member.
- Adults intervene in only 4% of bullying incidents on the playground, and 14% of bullying incidents in the classroom.
- Peers intervene in 19% of bullying incidents.
Vision for Power Up: To create an environment where girls and adults are in partnership to collectively eliminate bullying behavior.
Objectives of Power Up: Enhance the skills of youth and adult participants to enable them to intervene in a positive way when confronted with bullying activities.
- Girls will be able to identify bullying behaviors.
- Girls will be prepared to positively intervene when confronted with bullying activities both in and outside of Girl Scouting.
- Adults will be prepared to implement Power Up!
- Adults will be able to identify the dynamics of girl-to-girl bullying.
- Adults will have the tools to create a space safe from bullying and be able to intervene in a positive way when problems arise.
This program is unique in that it utilizes informal education, experiential learning, and processing to teach bullying prevention in a same sex setting. The program is strongly research based, but adaptable enough to be relevant to girls in any situation or learning environment. To ensure that the discussions remain age-appropriate, each workshop is grouped by ages 5- 7, 8- 10, 11-12, 13-14, 15-18.
This program can be completed:
- During school in collaboration with health or physical education classes
- After-school programs
- Youth groups
- Religious groups
- Special events
For questions or if you would like to schedule a Power Up program at your school or site, please contact Christi Strieter at powerup@gssef.org or call her at 561-427-0182.